The Whole Tooth, and Nothing But the Tooth

Offending tooth, top middle The Wednesday morning trip to the dentist left us feeling much relieved that the tooth wasn't causing DC any major discomfort - having seen the dentist prod and poke with DC not even flinching, that much was evident. With the dentist's words of 'nothing to worry about, just wait til the adult tooth grows through' ringing in our ears, we felt like a huge weight of worry had been lifted from our shoulders. But, little by little, the worry-weight started to come back - is his tooth really going to look like that for the next 4-5 years til the adult tooth comes through? is he really going to have to eat by pushing food into the sides of his mouth and not biting at the front? are we going to be on tenterhooks just waiting for him to knock it again? etc, etc. So, on Friday we got an appointment at the emergency dentist who specialises in children; by this time the tooth looked different yet again, sort of swollen and boil-like (sounds odd, looked odd!) This dentist was pretty adamant that the tooth had to come out, and we were really rather relieved at this diagnosis. So, after a trip back to our original dentist for a referral letter and a trip back to this dentist to deliver said letter, we got a phone call that very afternoon to say that DC was booked in a week later at 7.30am at the Royal Berks to have the offending tooth whipped out. Hooray! We then had just one more trip to the dentist to sign some forms on Monday morning and then it was countdown to Friday.

Friday morning, 7am and we were on our way to hospital. By 9am we were in theatre where I cuddled small boy while he had a needle put in the back of his hand (which had already been numbed with copious amounts of 'magic cream'); within seconds of the needle going in and the anaesthetic being pumped through, he was sound asleep in my arms. I popped him down on the operating table and hubby & I were quickly chivvied out of the room, told to go and get a coffee and come back in 25-30mins. So off we went to the cafe for drinks and a sausage sarnie for hubby, reading matter at the ready. The time flew by and we were back on the ward a few minutes before DC was wheeled in in the arms of a nurse, just coming round from his little sleep. For the next 30mins or so he was a bit teary and upset, probably caused as much by a feeling of 'where am I? what just happened?' as much as the discomfort of having an operation, but not long after 10am we were back in the car heading home and the distraction of being out and about did the trick and we had no more tears. Home by 10.30am, small boy tucked up in a blanket, cuddling his favourite teddy, drinking milk and watching Chuggington. 11.30am small boy running round the house, eating pureed lunch and acting as if nothing had happened.

The fact that Friday happened to be April Fool's Day wasn't lost on us; I was very tempted to phone Granny and tell her DC had been fitted with a lovely little set of falsies, but I didn't.

Without offending tooth, but with big gap.